Apple, Inc. of Cupertino is well known for a popular handheld device named the “iPhone”. FIGS. 1A-1D show one operational feature of a currently available iPhone. According to the approach of FIGS. 1A-1D, when the iPhone is displaying its home display 101, which includes displays of respective icons 102a-102i for the applications (“apps”) installed on the iPhone (FIG. 1A), the user may fetch the Springboard search engine (FIG. 1B) by scrolling leftwise to the leftmost screen. A search on the particular text that is entered into the Springboard search engine (e.g., “Dan”) will reveal hits on pertinent entries (FIG. 1C). Generally, “hits” are listed in order according to the following stratagem: contact hits before music/video hits; music/video hits before note hits; note hits before calendar hits. Selection of one of the listed hits opens up a corresponding file. Thus, for example, if a contact hit is selected, standard contact information for the particular individual is presented along with various buttons for further options (FIG. 1D). In the case of displayed contact information (as observed in FIG. 1D), one of these buttons 103 opens up a text dialog window for sending a text message to the individual associated with the contact file.
FIGS. 2A-2C show another operational feature of a currently available iPhone. When the iPhone is displaying its home display 201 of respective icons for the applications installed on the iPhone (FIG. 2A), the user may launch the text messaging application by tapping on the text messaging icon 202a. The text messaging application can be used to send content, such as text, using a short messaging service provided by cellular telephone carriers such as AT&T. If there is no recently received text message, the text messaging application initially displays a list (FIG. 2B) of the individuals with whom the user has had text messaging conversations in time order (i.e., the individual with whom the user has most recently received/sent text messages. from/to is listed before the individual with whom the user had a conversation with most recently before the most recent conversation, etc.). A particular individual can be found by scrolling down through the listed individuals until the desired user is found. By tapping on the individual's name, a text messaging dialogue window is opened (FIG. 2C) that includes a previous exchange with the user and an entry field 203 for entering words to send via text messaging to the individual.
Notably, as observed above, currently released iPhones do not permit the user to enter a text-based search, the result of which permits the user to readily retrieve a desired text message conversation.
Searches of textual information at least, however, are known in the art. For instance, according to one known approach, a letter sequence search may be performed for a text document (such as an HTML document retrieved from the Internet or a document rendered in a word processing application). After the user enters the term to be searched, a portion of the document that includes the first “hit” (starting from the beginning of the document) is rendered to the user with the hit upon search term being highlighted to the user. The user can then jump to the next hit in the document (e.g., by hitting a user interface button). In this case, a next portion of the document that surrounds the next hit is rendered to the user.
Another known approach permits a user to search for a key letter sequence within a group of documents. Documents having the searched for term are displayed to the user. After the user selects one of the documents, the selected document is presented to the user.
Another known approach permits a user to search his/her email records for a specific letter sequence. Emails having the sought-for term are displayed to the user. After the user selects one of the emails, the selected email is displayed with a reply button that, when activated, launches a draft outbound email destined for the sender of the selected email.